Moulding Room
'The Moulding Room' Purpose: ''Supposedly, to transform the minds and bodies of the world and become its new masters. Really, because they can. ''Doctrine: ''To subvert the lives, industries, bodies, and selves of the Visitors; to alter them with surgery, to allow recordings or stories of their intimate moments into public view. For Residents, to study the hunger for and worship of power, and what people will do to get it, and to use it to slowly subvert and transform society. (For example, the neophytes meet to re-enact and refilm a notorious celebrity sex-tape, changing it with each iteration, transforming it gradually into a surreal horror of blood and death. Come the end of the rites, the vampires take a chosen few to a private, second ceremony where there are no cameras and where the subversion extends even to human flesh.) ''Membership: ''Human initiates fall into two groups: those who are rich, beautiful, or both; and those who are the eyes behind the camera, with access to CCTV. Vampire initiates are mystics, experimenters, and those who simply want to know everything. They are always Mekhet but can be drawn from any covenant, though Dragons are the most common members of the Moulding Room. 'Initiation Benefits' '• Visitors learn to understand and love CCTV cameras. The character gains a free specialty in Investigation (Surveillance). These members do not see the full rites of the cult. •• It's all about who you know, and the rich, beautiful, and powerful Visitors to the Moulding Room know everyone. The character gains a free dot of either Allies or Contacts to represent these connections. ••• Residents gain access to the unique Discipline of Detournement: the subversion of one's own flesh so that society may itself be subverted. Detournement may be purchased as an out-of-clan Discipline. •••• Visitors are encouraged to help each other out, forming an invisible network of power and influence. The Watchers, those behind the camera, are in the best position to make use of this. The character gains the Friends in High Places Merit, ignoring the usual Invictus-only restriction. This Merit may only be used on mortals, and the favor does not need to be repaid. ••••• Though usually focused on mortal society, at high levels of status the Residents find it useful to keep an eye on Kindred society as well. The character gains the Cacophony Savvy (•••) Merit free of charge. '''Detournement • The Contagion Principle : The vampire can 'tag' a target with a shred of her fingernail, allowing her to instinctively know how far away the target is, and in which direction. The target gains the Tagged Condition. : This power works otherwise as written, except that the Cost is None. •• The Eye Behind the Glass : A resident with this power can literally remove her eye and install it with wiring, Vitae and spittle behind a camera lens or a mirror, allowing her to perceive that area as though she were looking out of the lens or mirror herself. : This power works as written. ••• From the Cutting Room Floor (new) : Cost: 1 Willpower : Dice Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge + Detournement : Action: None (activated in conjunction with other Detournement powers) : Duration: Scene : At this level of Detournement the vampire progresses beyond watching images and begins to subvert them. Powers are modified in the following ways: : The Contagion Principle: ''The Resident may now extend his own supernatural protection against having his image recorded to the person carrying the shred of his fingernail. If he does so, the carrier gains that single aspect of the vampiric curse, represented by the Lost Visage Condition. : ''The Eye Behind the Glass: ''The Resident may now subtly but instantaneously edit the images that pass through his eye. This allows an eye hidden behind a mirror to return a misleading reflection, or one attached to a camera lens to blur certain images, alter minor details (facial details, for example, but not the presence or absence of a whole human body), or 'blink' briefly to cut the feed for a few seconds. •••• Face of New Flesh : By removing or disfiguring the face of a living human, the vampire can steal it for his own. : ''As written, except that the Cost is one Vitae, and the vampire need only disfigure the victim enough to make her face unrecognizable. This requires five points of lethal damage or a single point of aggravated damage; the former is not permanently disfiguring. If the victim completely heals before the duration expires, the effects of Face of New Flesh fade early - only one person may recognizably be a given individual at a time. Use of this power is premeditated violence, and therefore a Humanity 3 breaking point. ••••• The Soul Transplant : The vampire can remove the soul of a dead or comatose human and either transplant it into another mortal or consume it to gain strength of will. : As written, except that the Cost is one Vitae and one Willpower. Cinematically, the point of Vitae is a solution bath that keeps the soul 'alive' until it is used. Also, use of this power is a Humanity 2 breaking point if it is performed on a comatose victim (as premeditated killing), but only a Humanity 4 breaking point if performed on a corpse (akin to learning a dot of Crúac). 'Devotions' Butcher's Hook (Mekhet, Auspex •••) : As written, except that this technique costs 5 Beats to learn. The Pleasure of the Text (Auspex •••, Detournement ••) : As written, except that the vampire takes a point of lethal damage on a Dramatic Failure rather than a point of aggravated damage, and that this power costs 10 Beats to learn. 'Conditions' Tagged : You have been tagged with a tracking device. The person who tagged you knows how far away you are and which direction you are in at all times. : Resolution: 'Resolve this Condition if you discover and remove the tracking device. Remove this Condition without resolution if the person who tagged you ceases to track you. : '''Beat: '''Take a Beat if this Condition leads to you being ambushed. Lost Visage : For some reason, some aspect of the Vampiric curse has come to affect you. Any image of you, whether photograph, CCTV, or reflection, will be 'coincidentally' unidentifiable, due to seemingly mundane factors that might include anything from the angle being wrong to catch your face, to a lens flare, to a digital error preventing the camera from recording the image, to soap scum on the mirror blurring your reflection. : '''Resolution: '''Resolve this Condition if you step into the sunlight while it is active, or when the supernatural power that imposed it expires. : '''Beat: '''N/A 'Source Mekhet: Shadows in the Dark, pp 97-99, 101-104. 'Butcher's Hook', p 108. Category:The Moulding Room Category:Cults Category:Translations Category:Unique Disciplines Category:Conditions Category:Devotions Category:Shadow Cults